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Innovation Trumps Experience

Innovation trumps experience – most every time!

I am reminded of that classic scene from Jerry Maguire where his conscious gets the best of him and he stays up all night writing and printing his Mission Statement – or was it a memo? After speaking to a client and seeing the family’s anguish, he decides there has got to be a better way.

After distributing his statement to everyone in the company and getting a standing ovation from the staff – he finds himself sitting in a cafe being publicly fired by a man who once called him, “mentor.”

How does that even happen? What is it about change that scares people?

Twenty/thirty years ago – going against the grain was radical. You simply trusted the “way its done” and your boss’ father’s 50 years of experience and called it a day. I’m so glad that times have changed.

When we were planning the marketing efforts for Aviv Moon Productions, I refused to look and see what other companies were doing. I went for the obvious but the very different.

We had a conversation with the marketing team and decided that as a Video Production company, we needed to use video to market. To take it a step further, I encouraged our team that this was the opportunity to show off a little. We launched a very video heavy website. Why wouldn’t we?

All of this to say, we are now in 2015 where different is good, testing is expected, and new ideas are welcome. No longer is it profitable to rely on your 20 plus years of experience. In fact, web and marketing move so fast – I don’t rely on what I did last year!

In the time that you’ve continued to do what you’ve always done, some young kid in Toms has pushed forward with something so new and different that you feel like you’ve been punched by Ali – so fast you don’t know what just hit you.

So Marketers – let’s do this.

Let’s be brave and innovative. Let’s write a plan that leaves our team waiting for us in the lobby in a standing ovation. Let’s be so forward thinking that we find ourselves sitting in a public diner being fired by someone who once called us mentor.